Its a JAB ! Just Another Blog !!!

Vodafone India ₹ 499 LifeTime Offer Today, as I was having lunch, I received a call. The caller identified me by name. Then proceeded to explain she was calling to offer me a great ‘postpaid’ plan. From Vodafone. Why? I was already on a Vodafone pre paid. No Answer. But I figured. A few months earlier, I had figured that the bill being charged to me was too much for the services I was availing. So I did what a right minded Gujju would. Switched to pre-paid. Now mind you, I have been on post paid for over a decade before the switch. Back to the call.  She : I am suggestiing a Rs. 499/- “lifetime” plan which would include some 700 minutes of local talk time, 500 SMS and 2 GB of 3G data. Me (Thinking) : Now that is a pretty decent plan for someone with my kind of usage. My curiosity is piqued. Me : How long is “lifetime” Her (irritated voice) : lifetime means lifetime. Me : What if Vodafone shuts down this plan. Her : Kya Sir, aisa kabhi hota hai kya. Vodafone...

Frequently the question arises of education will change, innovate. What do we expect in the education industry ? This industry I believe, will see some huge changes. The segment I refer to here is the under K-12, maybe restricted up to 10th standard in India, the equivalent of the sophomore year. The model so far prevalent in this industry is capital intensive. The ability to start a school is based on your ability to invest in a land tract, or own one, in a prime location or at least sufficiently accessible . have the capital to build school, and relevant infrastructure. interface with government for necessary approvals and other purposes like grants, compliance etc. This greatly limits competition in the industry. Worse, it eliminates motivation to improve. Instead, what I expect in the future is a triad, which optimizes competition, ensuring better outcomes. The triad would be Infrastructure providing businesses Regulation, Compliance Testing Services The...

My brain was wired to wonder what would happen 10 years down the line. Not with my life, but with the profession that I am attached with, of computer software. In 2000, I believed we would be selling songs on the internet, doing infrastructure management remotely and need security consulting for organisations in ICT and most of that is true. Now, what next. When I look at the current landscape in technology + businesses, where is what generally happens. Startups, which do various business models providing similar services, eventually merging to form large companies to provide scale, as and when the service becomes  a commodity. The interesting nature of the startups from around 2005 is simple, automate. Automate the way we live our life. What will we do when we have reached this level of automation, and a particular level of efficiency - Cars are no longer produced for individuals to purchase, but can be 'rented' for short periods.  Public/Private scaled tra...

2004 : Regular commute on the western express highway (which was barely a total of 3-4 lanes) all the way to Seepz, sometimes via Aarey Colony/JVLR. Chai pe discussions (borrowed phrase) over why are they bothering to build a highway in the middle of the city..why we just cant have a metro from  Ghodbundar / Kashimira  to atleast Bandra , since we were anyways building the commercial district of Bandra Kurla Complex  and the  Bandra  Terminus. Anyways Delhi had a metro since the 1990's, and we being the hip and happening Mumbai deserved our own. That, we all know did not happen. And, in the meanwhile, atleast I now have good understanding of why something like that or similar will have opposing forces : Lost Fare - Such a move would render thousands of auto fares/taxi fares needless. Think about Rs. 1 to 2 crore lost on a daily basis. In this context, think of the cycle of increasing taxi-auto fares -> increasing taxi/auto permits -> increasing fa...

Welcome. Please ask yourself which state do you reside in, and the further, the basis of formation of that state.   States, in India, have been formed based on percentage population of people speaking a language . Such a basis, coupled with other factors, have set India on a path to disintegrating which should gain momemtum, in my estimtates within the next decade, with visible extreme negative results by 2025 . The intensity of this problem has aggravated in the last decade, simply due to the change in technology, making people more connected, in many cases amplifying perceptions of injustice to a particular group.   Why such a basis of division has been accepted, and used so far, is a question that needs serious answering. Worse, the momentun of such activity has been increasing in the past 15 years, bringing us periliously close to a Europe like reality.   Chattisgarh - formed 1 Nov 2000, separated from Madhya Pradesh. Uttarakhand - formed 9 Nov 2000, from ...

Across my reading of the Hindu literature, the segregation of the people is generally into the 4 classes. Please note, CLASSES, not castes. The word used for this social classification is 'varna', not 'jaati'. Loosely translated, it means, a class, a complexion, a category. Those who defend and fight for honour, largely, to uphold 'dharma' or righteousness, are Kshatriyas. The key capabilities are those of war and battle. Those who learn, research and distribute knowledge are the Brahmins. The key capabilities are those of learning and teaching. In most places, it can be seen that a combination, a partnership, a close collaboration of the Kshatriyas and the Brahmins is a necessity for managing/ruling the people, where the objective is largely the betterment of the people, or upholding dharma. Those who trade, own business houses, including those of skilled trade like carpentry are Vaishyas. The key capabilities are those of trading and of their particular ...

This post is largely about some changes which would be beneficial to Mumbai ( rikshaw drivers and commuters both) and not so beneficial to the politicians. The objectives that would be met are: 1. financial benefits to the autoriksha instead of the middlemen. 2. guidelines which bring clarity to autorikshas and commuters, both. 3. guidelines for vehicles. Current circumstances: A permit is issued for an autoriksha, which is transferable to another vehicle used. An public service capable license is required to drive these autos. Currently no additional registration or listing is required to be able to drive Suggestions:  An increase in the number of permits based on the increase in population in the city every year. (before you yell @ me about the traffic problems already, please read on) The permit of an autoriksha should be issued to those who own a public service license. This should be necessarily combined with other details like a PAN number or now an Aadhar n...

For quite some time have been trying to understand and figure out whether the retail investor can ever make money from the market. There are some queries which if unanswered, clearly imply the retail investor being disadvantaged in the share market, clearly indicating lack of market efficiency...   1. Insider information. This can never be done away with. The top level executives of businesses 'know the score' and will make some market moves in advance based on this information. This 'score' can be the organisation's results or regulatory changes of the government. Not in the USA, Not in India. And contrary to what many believe, post the Rajat Gupta episode, this problem exists at the same scale in all places where a share market functions. The fundamental human is the same everywhere with the same shortcomings. 2. Skill lacunae - executives generally have some management education, and brokers have 'connections', which may not be the case for t...

I am the One and Only. Almost every revelation, discourse from any prophet, incarnate, divinty worth their name in salt have uttered thus or some variation. Bhagavad-Gita 12:06   Bhagavad-Gita 07:14 and many more in the Bhagavad-Gita, Bible and many such religious texts. And each time that happens, a new religion, sect etc. is formed, claiming to be followers of the only true one and the others to be false (MASSIVE FACEPALM). Achieving the EXACT opposite of the revelation. The 'One' is all pervasive, unmanifest ! Logically also it makes perfect sense, the case that there can be only one 'One', and well, that's exactly what the One claimed, albeit about the unmanifest and not the manifestation. And then each one of us, instead of understanding that there's only one One, with our finite wisdom, generally mislead by marketing managers (religious leaders) ask the question 'Which One ?' The global religion marketing wars ar...

Too many incidents happening frequently, which brings up this post : 1.   The Palghar Facebook Incident [Shiv Sena Supremo related] 2. Sibal 2G No Loss 3. Gadkari Holding companies issue 4. Legality of calling the Indian parliamentarians names. and so on... Days at end, the legality of these issues has been debated. The Palghar incident caused a relook of the Constitution / laws of the country, the new auction has supposedly given a clean chit to Sibal / Congress in the 2G spectrum auction case, something similar to what has happened with Gadkari and some audits done by his party. During the fast undertaken by Anna Hazare, parliamentarians were called names, which was immediately raked up as an issue by some MP's. So what is the crux of these matters. First, as must be obvious, I hold no qualifications in Law , which as you will see is beside the point, since a majority of the country's citizens do not as well. The sad fact is this, In each of these cas...

First to be fair to Kodak , Thank You for making available 5MP+ cameras to retail consumers . But you are still stuck being a product company. Now it is all about experience. And sadly, even though your cameras are great, cheap and selling, the end experience leaves some to be desired. Now its great, that with the later versions of EasyShare software you got on the 'social' bandwagon, provided facebook etc. options but please understand that countries like India, your average user (currently in 2011 and atleast a couple of years more, which if not managed properly can be damaging permanently) is still going to sync with the computer and that is where the Kodak easyshare is not at all easy ! Some problems - 1. the display does not indicate file types while selecting for download to your computer, so if someone has shot a 100 mb movie in between pictures, you are stuck while transferring. And thats exactly what happened, some videos were shot which were around 10 t...

Ok, So one of the channels decided to show BodyGuard at 9 pm. yesterday. Had heard the movie wasn't that great. Had found Wanted crazily hilarious, so switched to the movie sharp at 9 pm.  The movie started with a scene localized for consumption from Rajneeti (Sorry, Rajneeti localized GodFather, and now Rajneeti gets a mention.) Why on earth would they start a movie like this ? Well that was it. The movie lost 80% of my interest then. Still hung around even though most of the going ons were nonsense. Finally switched channels when Salman Khan did a SpiderMan (no it was Robot) to jump out of the local train onto an express going in the opposite direction. Good thing the jump was before 13 Nov 2011, else, post the switchover happening today from DC to AC, a man standing on the train is likely to be pulled into the overhead wires. Last thing, please change the name of the movie to Body-Spider-Father-Man !! Sounds dumb ? That's how the start looked to me. Disclaimer:...

For those who enjoy reading a lot, you must know who Ayn Rand is. Her characters like Howard Roark are charcters you dont forget a lifetime. Her characters usually had a high level of ego, and she propagated the 'selfish motive'. While her characters and writings are honest in some sense, she has sadly glorified the egotism, and the self centered-ness, justifying that only a selfish man can give the best to the world A high number of mid to senior executives have read her writings, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and I am sure, were deeply influenced to be egotistic !! This in a world of complete interdependence. She is also supposed to be one of those who influenced the US of A for its strategy of consumerism..

This topic is probably been done already before, but I will state some simple thoughts. Am open to answers..  Many future predictions, specially HSBC and Deustche bank predictions mention India's GDP growth to surpass all other countries by 2045/2050, largely considering the India's population as its strength ! Did anyone know, we would all be chatting away on Facebook 25 years back ? Anyways, I doubt whether the population is a strength. Here's why.  1. Food : Already the vegetable rates are interesting, wonder where they will go. All the big shots Pranab Mukherjee, PM Manmohan Singh etc. have said this is due to change in dietary patterns. I have my doubts. I think it is largely due to politically powerful intermediaries holding Indians at ransom. But if these politicians are right, just think what direct cash transfers will do. 2. Water : Already the average distance a rural Indian woman travels for fresh data water is in kilometers. Wonder where they will ...

I have been wondering, and Yes, I do know that I do that a lot !! Wondering, about Dominant Design. An alternative name for a Monopoly !!  No, not a monopoly in the orthodox sense of an enterprise, but the monopoly of a particular dominant design. Why do we have only electricity and no other 'city' after that. A random google search (what else ) tells me humanity has known electricity for over 2500 years, analyzed and have been capable of generating it for almost 300 years. But isn't someone trying to discover an alternate form of powering us up instead of just alternate forms of electricity generation methods !! Dont we loose a lot in transformation ?? What about wheels. Sure it maybe 1 of the most important discoveries / inventions ever, but doesnt anyone think of changing the fundamentals of transport. Arent we advanced enough to stop having wheels as the dominant design. What about planes that jump up like a frog, instead of the runway, before t...

Of course, it isn't news. But it's the truth. Isn't it ? Most commonly we say, it is the system. Well, more recently, we have gained an understanding that we are the system. We know that we are born paying bribes (think about the pregnant woman in the gaon who wanted to get admission in the government hospital for her delivery) and die paying bribes (dont forget the guy who sits at the cemetery who helps with the death certificates, and God forbid, if you are a special case in any way.) So what can be defined as corruption. In the above cases it was very straight forward to identify, but there can be vague instances as well. A businessman, who is a bank customer giving sweets on festivals to bank employees, expecting  on the side, fast service, when the need arises. Some might want to call this good will, but make no mistake. This is corruption. So what exactly is corruption : When entity1 gives something extra to the entity2 for getting something in return whi...

Couple of months back, I saw something interesting on the streets in Mumbai, where women were selling some wares. Observed some more, and here it is... Hot Shots This tactic is visible in restaurants, mainly Udipi restaurants and also the steetside pavbhaji/tava pulav vendors in Mumbai. Does it happen in your city/town/village as well ? The bhajis, specially the red coloured gravy ones: bhaji from pao-bhaji, veg kolhapuri, veg patiala, bhendi masala etc. are cooked using a mix of masala which stings on the tongue, and most of us eat food in such places when the temperature of the food is hot to lukewarm. This combination of hot taste and hot temperature confuses the average human being's reflexes: While eating such bhajis, ability to discern hunger and taste decreases, thrist, and eating speed increases. This generally results in you eating a pao-bhaji quickly, not understanding how much of your hunger is appeased, and generally resulting in a side order of a carbona...

Sigh !!!!!!   My heart bleeds... The things that they have done to Mumbai. I came to Mumbai in June 1990 for further education. The charm of Mumbai that lured me...the city. The beautiful stories that I had heard. Rags to Riches stories. Stories of love, of unquestioning freedom, of strength, of sacrifice, of mafia dons who cared for the poor, of trains that run in both directions (most people who come for the first time here are amazed !). And look what they have done to it.   http://specials.rediff.com/news/2006/jul/05sld1.htm and http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/jul/29sld01.htm and http://in.rediff.com/news/mumrain05.htm and http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Mumbai/Salt_pans_may_be_up_for_grabs/articleshow/2093268.cms   Raped over and over again. Not by one but by all politicians and political party. She survives, not cared for by the people she has nurtured over the years, but on her own, like the whores of Mumbai fou...